As I slowly work away on this book and some of these source questions, this blog might be transforming itself into a forum where I can share my thoughts about how things are progressing. This might be a useful exercise. I should stress, as I might have done before, that since this is a blog, I don't spend much time on the revising (it comes out after I write it).
With that in mind...
Procopius writes in the tradition of classical historians like Herodotus and Thucydides. In fact, in many ways his work engages directly with those very historians. One of the many parts of his Wars where this is particularly evident is the preface, where the historian is to set out his task and state his claims and argue why he (invariably) is the man for the job. If you read Procopius' preface, it reads very much like the preface of a host of earlier classical historians.
Most of the claims that he makes serve to establish his authority, the why he's the man for the job bit. So he includes the claim, from me previous post, in which he discusses the importance of autopsy, at least from his perspective. He was well suited to this task - describing the wars of Justinian - because he happened to become an advisor to Belisarius, the famous general and participant for most of the action, and because Procopius himself saw almost everything that he describes (1.1.3). Autopsy stressed: Procopius is a sensible historian.
Of course, someone could easily come along and question whether Procopius was as trustworthy as he claims to be. It's all well and good to emphasize autopsy, and to have been an eye-witness, but readers will need to know why they can trust you and your experiences. Questions had been raised about the value of autopsy for some time. Luckily for modern and ancient readers alike, Procopius is no slouch. No, he goes on to set out why exactly it is that he deserves to be believed. He claims (1.1.4) that truth is the most relevant thing to history (well ξυγγραφῇ ), and that this is what he's writing. So, Procopius was an eyewitness, he's written a history, and he argues that truth is the most important thing in history.
There is still room for shoddy writing, and to counter any other possible criticisms, most notably claims of bias (and Belisarius is undoubtedly the obvious target of this), Procopius then comes out (1.1.5) and says that he's gone and written everything exactly as it is (with accuracy that is) about those he knows, whether they did good things or bad things. He even stresses that he hasn't concealed their failures. Just after this, before he gets to his oft-discussed comparison of contemporary and Homeric archers, he comes back to the role of truth. For he says that the events that he's about to describe are the best, at least if someone wants to base their judgements on the truth.
To take stock then: Procopius has said I'm the best man for the job because I had a prime position to see and experience everything and was there for most things, truth is highly valued in history and if you do too you'll see that my work is the best, and I have not given any signs of bias, but rather have said everything about those concerned. Thus, on the basis of his own criteria, if we are to evaluate Procopius' own discussion then we can see that he's up to the job. We can afford him the kind of respect that we do Thucydides and Polybius, for instance. Of course, conscientious modern historians don't take Procopius at his word - much more work is needed. But, the fact that he's gone and said this often does allay some fears.
One issue that complicates things is Procopius' statements in the much debated Secret History. There he states that he couldn't say everything that he wanted in the Wars because things were, essentially, too precarious. He seems to imply that he feared for his safety if he was to come out and openly bash some of the key participants, and Justinian is the one he has particularly in mind. Does this mean we should toss out the Wars? Well, no, because we are conscientious, and he doesn't, for example, spend a whole lot of time explicitly discussing Justinian in the Wars anyway, at least relatively speaking - though he's always there, somewhere, looming in the background, so to speak. Moreover, based on what work I've done on Procopius in the past, he does seem to be forthright about most things, and where things might have been sketchy, he simply doesn't discuss them (he's not lying, he's just being selective).
Anyway, that's essentially the setting out of the claims of Procopius himself about whether he should trust him - the basis on which discussions of autopsy are based, or how far we should believe them. As always, more to come...
Friday, 17 October 2014
Procopius' Use of Autopsy
When the issues of veracity and reliability in ancient historians surface in the scholarly literature, discussion regularly turns to three ways that an ancient historian gathered (invariably) his information: autopsy, oral accounts, and written sources. Autopsy is usually, but not always, the highest ranking of the lot.
Although seemingly straightforward, autopsy has different meanings. There is the careful examination of a corpse - this is not what is meant in these cases, obviously. It can mean the personal observation or experience of a thing (or what have). But it can also mean the critical examination of something (subject, work). So, it should be clear that the autopsy referred to by scholars could fall into either of those second two categories; and, it should be clear why the lack of clarity might be a cause of concern. When the word opsis is used, it's easy to see what the person has in mind. But in others it's less so. With that said, most modern scholars usually have the former in mind: personal observation and experience (there is a significant discussion of it in Marincola's 1997 book that I must have read a decade or so ago, but which is a bit hazy in my mind at present).
In both cases, it can be hard to work out which one an ancient historian is employing. If it's the former, sometimes ancient historians will make comments in the first person or otherwise which imply that they had seen something which makes it easy enough to determine. If it's the latter it's a bit trickier, but sometimes historians will make a comment about something they've read or seen and what they think about it. They'll even make comments, rarely, about competing accounts. The one historian who seems to be explicitly engaged in a fair amount of autopsy of both kinds of Herodotus, and his impact has been significant.
I've already made some comments in an earlier post - and will do so in more final versions of all this - about Procopius' own experiences, which in turn hinted at autopsy in the Wars (I've left out the Buildings and Secret History, though my first impressions that is that with the SH much of the information is purportedly autopsy, and that it is harder to say with the Build.). Procopius does hint at the role of autopsy in his own account, as one (ancient historian) should, in the preface. He says he's well suited to the task, writing the wars of Justinian: "Furthermore he had assurance that he was especially competent to write the history of these events, if for no other reason, because it fell to his lot, when appointed advisor to the general Belisarius, to be an eye-witness to practically all the events to be described" (1.1.3). So, pretty explicit stuff.
As I said the character Procopius acts on occasion in the Wars, though given his position in Belisarius' army and what he's said in the preface, there has been little doubt that he did see a great deal of what he describes. Even for Procopius himself, then, autopsy ranks highly - following in the vein of Herodotus and Thucydides, amongst others. Now, this second large project, well, like most of my other work, deals with military stuff, and so that includes battles, sieges, campaigns, and the like. But we know, and have known for some time, that these things are hard to describe in part because of the mass chaos that ensues, especially in combat. This might not apply quite so much with respect to campaigns (marching, supply gathering, etc.), but still things might not have been as straightforward as they appear.
One question/issue that springs to mind with all of this is: where would Procopius have been when all the action was going on? If he was the advisor/secretary to Belisarius, then he was invariably engaged in all sorts of important tasks, and would have been in a position (here, more metaphorically - not physically but vis-a-vis his relationship to Belisarius) to acquire good information. When it came to witnessing things, what then? If we accept that one of Procopius' duties was to write up battle reports - and some think he was at least responsible for sending the letters that sometimes pop up in the Gothic Wars - is he much more likely to have been in a position to see things with his own eyes - engage in this autopsy? In a battle then, if we assume a Hellenistic or Odyssean general is assumed we he be seated on a horse at the back of the Roman side beholding all that transpired before him? In this case it would matter a great deal if the topography of the site enabled such a vantage point. It would be easier, too, to wittiness combat in a siege if he was on the defensive side, like Rome in 537/538. One could easily imagine a Procopius on the walls looking down on the Goths with appropriate record-keeping materials observing all that transpires.
Yet, those sorts of positions, at the back of a battle or at the walls of a city during a siege, aren't the safest of places in the best of times. If he had been in those positions from the get-go, and if he was simply a writer with little combat experience or ability, it is something of a surprise that he was able to survive all of the engagements that he described. Is this reasonable? Well, yes: not all war reporters are killed in war zones. Procopius could have survived all such instances. With that said, it is not more reasonable to assume that he wasn't close by watching, but rather safely ensconced in the camp or within the city walls when skirmishes were breaking out? How much autopsy then went into his battle descriptions? Perhaps not a whole lot. Even so, it would be difficult for anyone to describe any of these battles or sieges, whether simply a participant relaying activities to friends or family, or a general or member of staff reporting the results to the higher ups. This also raises questions about what might actually have been in the battle reports that might have been made. Could there have been any expectation that there would be any real detail in these? Or would they be the bare bones, the most relevant of details (as many have surmised) instead?
On the other hand, does this then take things too far into post-modern territory? In other words, can we recover nothing? I don't think so. There's just a number of interesting questions that pop up in these sorts of discussions.
More to come...
Although seemingly straightforward, autopsy has different meanings. There is the careful examination of a corpse - this is not what is meant in these cases, obviously. It can mean the personal observation or experience of a thing (or what have). But it can also mean the critical examination of something (subject, work). So, it should be clear that the autopsy referred to by scholars could fall into either of those second two categories; and, it should be clear why the lack of clarity might be a cause of concern. When the word opsis is used, it's easy to see what the person has in mind. But in others it's less so. With that said, most modern scholars usually have the former in mind: personal observation and experience (there is a significant discussion of it in Marincola's 1997 book that I must have read a decade or so ago, but which is a bit hazy in my mind at present).
In both cases, it can be hard to work out which one an ancient historian is employing. If it's the former, sometimes ancient historians will make comments in the first person or otherwise which imply that they had seen something which makes it easy enough to determine. If it's the latter it's a bit trickier, but sometimes historians will make a comment about something they've read or seen and what they think about it. They'll even make comments, rarely, about competing accounts. The one historian who seems to be explicitly engaged in a fair amount of autopsy of both kinds of Herodotus, and his impact has been significant.
I've already made some comments in an earlier post - and will do so in more final versions of all this - about Procopius' own experiences, which in turn hinted at autopsy in the Wars (I've left out the Buildings and Secret History, though my first impressions that is that with the SH much of the information is purportedly autopsy, and that it is harder to say with the Build.). Procopius does hint at the role of autopsy in his own account, as one (ancient historian) should, in the preface. He says he's well suited to the task, writing the wars of Justinian: "Furthermore he had assurance that he was especially competent to write the history of these events, if for no other reason, because it fell to his lot, when appointed advisor to the general Belisarius, to be an eye-witness to practically all the events to be described" (1.1.3). So, pretty explicit stuff.
As I said the character Procopius acts on occasion in the Wars, though given his position in Belisarius' army and what he's said in the preface, there has been little doubt that he did see a great deal of what he describes. Even for Procopius himself, then, autopsy ranks highly - following in the vein of Herodotus and Thucydides, amongst others. Now, this second large project, well, like most of my other work, deals with military stuff, and so that includes battles, sieges, campaigns, and the like. But we know, and have known for some time, that these things are hard to describe in part because of the mass chaos that ensues, especially in combat. This might not apply quite so much with respect to campaigns (marching, supply gathering, etc.), but still things might not have been as straightforward as they appear.
One question/issue that springs to mind with all of this is: where would Procopius have been when all the action was going on? If he was the advisor/secretary to Belisarius, then he was invariably engaged in all sorts of important tasks, and would have been in a position (here, more metaphorically - not physically but vis-a-vis his relationship to Belisarius) to acquire good information. When it came to witnessing things, what then? If we accept that one of Procopius' duties was to write up battle reports - and some think he was at least responsible for sending the letters that sometimes pop up in the Gothic Wars - is he much more likely to have been in a position to see things with his own eyes - engage in this autopsy? In a battle then, if we assume a Hellenistic or Odyssean general is assumed we he be seated on a horse at the back of the Roman side beholding all that transpired before him? In this case it would matter a great deal if the topography of the site enabled such a vantage point. It would be easier, too, to wittiness combat in a siege if he was on the defensive side, like Rome in 537/538. One could easily imagine a Procopius on the walls looking down on the Goths with appropriate record-keeping materials observing all that transpires.
Yet, those sorts of positions, at the back of a battle or at the walls of a city during a siege, aren't the safest of places in the best of times. If he had been in those positions from the get-go, and if he was simply a writer with little combat experience or ability, it is something of a surprise that he was able to survive all of the engagements that he described. Is this reasonable? Well, yes: not all war reporters are killed in war zones. Procopius could have survived all such instances. With that said, it is not more reasonable to assume that he wasn't close by watching, but rather safely ensconced in the camp or within the city walls when skirmishes were breaking out? How much autopsy then went into his battle descriptions? Perhaps not a whole lot. Even so, it would be difficult for anyone to describe any of these battles or sieges, whether simply a participant relaying activities to friends or family, or a general or member of staff reporting the results to the higher ups. This also raises questions about what might actually have been in the battle reports that might have been made. Could there have been any expectation that there would be any real detail in these? Or would they be the bare bones, the most relevant of details (as many have surmised) instead?
On the other hand, does this then take things too far into post-modern territory? In other words, can we recover nothing? I don't think so. There's just a number of interesting questions that pop up in these sorts of discussions.
More to come...
Wednesday, 15 October 2014
The Value of Sources and the Face of Procopian/Justinianic Warfare
Back to it. Strike while the ember's hot and all that.
Do the references to Procopius' own actions in the sixth century contained within the Wars make a difference to whether we think he's a good historian or not, or at least whether we really ought to use his text? It can, I guess to some degree, provide evidence of his own worth, his authority for discussing the material that he's narrating. This was an age old authority trick by the time Procopius was writing. If he was a participant then would seemingly provide some insight into what happened, though the problems with human memories and eye witnesses demonstrate that we shouldn't put too much stock in affairs. What it probably is really useful for is putting him in a position to get to the materials he'd need to write what he wrote, and to see, with his own eyes, how things worked. Too often we sort of assume, however, that he spent an ordinate amount of time making detailed and accurate notes, when we contain no such definitive evidence.
Even if we are able to get a sense of what kinds of sources he used in different situations, we still have to rank that material. Should things he saw himself rank higher than the rest? Than oral after that? And then dispatches and reports? Or should the order be switched some way? All those references to they say cause problems of their own. There are some examples where they might seem to referring to a particular person or persons, and others where it seems more likely that he's relying on written materials. Often, however, the statements aren't anywhere near clear enough, and in most of the Wars, like any good classicizing historian, he tends to shy away from identifying particular authors. There are exceptions, like Arrian, Herodotus, and Homer, but many of those come from book VIII, and it should be apparent that they have little bearing on current events.
Is this attempt to uncover his sources for particular military events all an exercise in futility? Even if I can uncover any of it, can it really tell us what we should believe? Probably not a whole heck of a lot - rather, we'd need comparable evidence, where it exists.
One last note: back to the doryphoroi. Discussion has often centred on whether Procopius was advocating an era of horse-archery at the expense of the infantry, and it's been suggested that this was partly (or largely) the result of Procopius' attachment to Belisarius. The general himself seems to have used a lot of cavalry, so Procopius would, unsurprisingly, use it and highlight it at the expense of others. Is this mere "bias" on the part of Procopius? Or is he actually reflecting reality? Rance has made a good case that he's not being exactly forthright. What all this thinking about sources has got me thinking, however, is whether the conversation should be shifted towards private armies versus public armies, not cavalry versus infantry. Is this the face of Procopian combat?
It seems that there was a shift towards cavalry, regardless of whether Procopius was overzealous in his reporting of their actions. But he also hints at a shift towards private armies. OK - you could say that the abandonment of the heavy infantry that won Rome its empire is cause for concern. But what about the failure of the state to pay for the armies to keep the empire secure? Or make the desired conquests easier? In some sense, then, what we see is a return to the profiteering of the late republic: soldier-generals fighting each other for power and prestige, while in the process nearly ruining the state. In the republic's case, it was fortunate enough, depending on your perspective, to have a guy like Octavian come round and right the ship. Without him, it's hard to imagine a Rome existing in the form that it did by the time Justinian came around. The sixth and seventh century state, however, didn't have anyone like that. Sure, Heraclius deserves lots of credit for what he did to prevent the ship from going down, but we all know that the empire would never again reach the geographical extent that it once did (and assuming that's the best sign of the strength of an empire - it might not be).
So, more for me to ponder. Yes, think more about sources. Think more about how to evaluate his worth. Think more about he characterizes the various militaries who feature in his works. But think too what was the most significant of those (if there is such a thing).
As always, more to come...
Do the references to Procopius' own actions in the sixth century contained within the Wars make a difference to whether we think he's a good historian or not, or at least whether we really ought to use his text? It can, I guess to some degree, provide evidence of his own worth, his authority for discussing the material that he's narrating. This was an age old authority trick by the time Procopius was writing. If he was a participant then would seemingly provide some insight into what happened, though the problems with human memories and eye witnesses demonstrate that we shouldn't put too much stock in affairs. What it probably is really useful for is putting him in a position to get to the materials he'd need to write what he wrote, and to see, with his own eyes, how things worked. Too often we sort of assume, however, that he spent an ordinate amount of time making detailed and accurate notes, when we contain no such definitive evidence.
Even if we are able to get a sense of what kinds of sources he used in different situations, we still have to rank that material. Should things he saw himself rank higher than the rest? Than oral after that? And then dispatches and reports? Or should the order be switched some way? All those references to they say cause problems of their own. There are some examples where they might seem to referring to a particular person or persons, and others where it seems more likely that he's relying on written materials. Often, however, the statements aren't anywhere near clear enough, and in most of the Wars, like any good classicizing historian, he tends to shy away from identifying particular authors. There are exceptions, like Arrian, Herodotus, and Homer, but many of those come from book VIII, and it should be apparent that they have little bearing on current events.
Is this attempt to uncover his sources for particular military events all an exercise in futility? Even if I can uncover any of it, can it really tell us what we should believe? Probably not a whole heck of a lot - rather, we'd need comparable evidence, where it exists.
One last note: back to the doryphoroi. Discussion has often centred on whether Procopius was advocating an era of horse-archery at the expense of the infantry, and it's been suggested that this was partly (or largely) the result of Procopius' attachment to Belisarius. The general himself seems to have used a lot of cavalry, so Procopius would, unsurprisingly, use it and highlight it at the expense of others. Is this mere "bias" on the part of Procopius? Or is he actually reflecting reality? Rance has made a good case that he's not being exactly forthright. What all this thinking about sources has got me thinking, however, is whether the conversation should be shifted towards private armies versus public armies, not cavalry versus infantry. Is this the face of Procopian combat?
It seems that there was a shift towards cavalry, regardless of whether Procopius was overzealous in his reporting of their actions. But he also hints at a shift towards private armies. OK - you could say that the abandonment of the heavy infantry that won Rome its empire is cause for concern. But what about the failure of the state to pay for the armies to keep the empire secure? Or make the desired conquests easier? In some sense, then, what we see is a return to the profiteering of the late republic: soldier-generals fighting each other for power and prestige, while in the process nearly ruining the state. In the republic's case, it was fortunate enough, depending on your perspective, to have a guy like Octavian come round and right the ship. Without him, it's hard to imagine a Rome existing in the form that it did by the time Justinian came around. The sixth and seventh century state, however, didn't have anyone like that. Sure, Heraclius deserves lots of credit for what he did to prevent the ship from going down, but we all know that the empire would never again reach the geographical extent that it once did (and assuming that's the best sign of the strength of an empire - it might not be).
So, more for me to ponder. Yes, think more about sources. Think more about how to evaluate his worth. Think more about he characterizes the various militaries who feature in his works. But think too what was the most significant of those (if there is such a thing).
As always, more to come...
Procopius' Sources
For the second major Procopius project of mine, I've been investigating sources and thinking about reliability in ways that I wasn't for the first one. It's all much more interesting than I'd considered, and I've benefitted from reading some interesting things of relevance by people like Borm, Whitby, Howard-Johnston, Kaegi, Colvin, Cameron, Greatrex, Treadgold, Parnell (excellent prosopography) and especially Sinclair (military bulletins), among others.
One of the first things that I did was evaluate, or consider, those instances where Procopius, the historical figure, intervened himself in the action, whether it was to provide advice about trumpets, get some intel from Sicily, or scope out some supply routes (and the supplies themselves) for the Romans. He doesn't intervene too often, though when he does he evinces some knowledge and experience with military stuff.
More recently I've turned to campaign reports and bulletins, and oral sources. I've been engaged in some TLG searches with a few choice words and phrases, and they have turned up some interesting results. There are, for instance, far more references to specific spearmen (doryphoroi) and shield-bearers (hypaspistes) than I had appreciated before, and possibly more than there should be given their relative numbers. I had wondered if this was, in part, due to their increased usage - and the connections with buccellarii, Procopius' experiences, and Belisarius' wealth might bear this out - in sixth century combat. But, I've also noticed that it is invariably the spearmen who are mentioned rather than the shield bearers. Not unusual in and of itself - all classical and classicizing (or just about) authors and theorists advocate attention be focused on the elite - though it's definitely something that's worth exploring. I can certainly appreciate why some see these men as the ones who gave Procopius much of his information.
I should add, on the subject of oral sources I'm also taking a look at Procopius' usage of words like phasi. Has a good pedigree, of course. What's stuck me so far is how much he uses it in what I consider the Herodotean parts of the Wars: books 1, 2 and 8 - the majority of usages are found there. This too might not be a coincidence, given, if I recall (off the top of my head) Herodotus' practices.
Bulletins and reports are a tougher nut to crack. None of these survive, save a possible example in the Chronicon Paschale. We also lack all those strength reports from the earlier empire, which seem to hint at some sort of record keeping of this sort, at least to my mind. Having considered some battles again, and looked closely (again) at one or two, I'm finding it hard trying to decide how we would find evidence of this sort of thing, and if we did what it would mean. Just because something's official it doesn't make it right. It does seem entirely likely that they existed in some form, and Procopius himself might have composed some for Justinian. If that's true, he probably did use them - maybe it was in his capacity as writer of official reports that he decided to compose the Wars?
Anyway, lots of interesting things being uncovered (to my mind), with many more to follow. This also happens to be raising, at least in my mind, interesting questions about composition. More to come...
One of the first things that I did was evaluate, or consider, those instances where Procopius, the historical figure, intervened himself in the action, whether it was to provide advice about trumpets, get some intel from Sicily, or scope out some supply routes (and the supplies themselves) for the Romans. He doesn't intervene too often, though when he does he evinces some knowledge and experience with military stuff.
More recently I've turned to campaign reports and bulletins, and oral sources. I've been engaged in some TLG searches with a few choice words and phrases, and they have turned up some interesting results. There are, for instance, far more references to specific spearmen (doryphoroi) and shield-bearers (hypaspistes) than I had appreciated before, and possibly more than there should be given their relative numbers. I had wondered if this was, in part, due to their increased usage - and the connections with buccellarii, Procopius' experiences, and Belisarius' wealth might bear this out - in sixth century combat. But, I've also noticed that it is invariably the spearmen who are mentioned rather than the shield bearers. Not unusual in and of itself - all classical and classicizing (or just about) authors and theorists advocate attention be focused on the elite - though it's definitely something that's worth exploring. I can certainly appreciate why some see these men as the ones who gave Procopius much of his information.
I should add, on the subject of oral sources I'm also taking a look at Procopius' usage of words like phasi. Has a good pedigree, of course. What's stuck me so far is how much he uses it in what I consider the Herodotean parts of the Wars: books 1, 2 and 8 - the majority of usages are found there. This too might not be a coincidence, given, if I recall (off the top of my head) Herodotus' practices.
Bulletins and reports are a tougher nut to crack. None of these survive, save a possible example in the Chronicon Paschale. We also lack all those strength reports from the earlier empire, which seem to hint at some sort of record keeping of this sort, at least to my mind. Having considered some battles again, and looked closely (again) at one or two, I'm finding it hard trying to decide how we would find evidence of this sort of thing, and if we did what it would mean. Just because something's official it doesn't make it right. It does seem entirely likely that they existed in some form, and Procopius himself might have composed some for Justinian. If that's true, he probably did use them - maybe it was in his capacity as writer of official reports that he decided to compose the Wars?
Anyway, lots of interesting things being uncovered (to my mind), with many more to follow. This also happens to be raising, at least in my mind, interesting questions about composition. More to come...
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